This is a question I urge all dog owners to ask themselves, because if you do not already know the answer, you may be harboring a grave misconception about yourself, and in the process, running the risk of possibly harming the canid kind with the decisions you take.

What’s the difference between the two? Yes, you are entitled to ask that and I will try my best to answer. Let me begin with an example:

I met a girl a few days back. She made this statement: I love dogs, but I HATE cats!

What do you deduce from it? Two easy deductions could be:

1. She is a dog lover

2. That doesn’t mean she can be categorized into the group we like to call “Animal Lovers”

Now, let’s go deeper into it.  I decided to quiz her.

It turns out that she is in love with a short haired Dacshund owned by her friend. She loves that dog. The dog, named Funny, isn’t friendly with cats. So she hates cats too. However, she does not particularly care about the stray dogs that loiter around their locality and that approach her with wagging tails for bits and pieces of leftover food.

I guess it is safe to say that she isn’t a dog lover either. She is simply in love with “a dog”.

In this form of affection, we tend to look upon a dog as a person — someone who has a role to play in our life. We care about that dog and it probably works the other way around as well. In a nutshell, in our minds we separate the dog from its kind.

Your dog gets into a fight with your neighbor’s dog. You get into an argument with the neighbor over it. You hate that guy… but you hate that dog too. To you that dog (personified as bad) is someone who can hurt your dog (personified as good), and so you will step in and do something about it.

The question is what will you do?

You can scare that dog away. You can chase it with a stick in your hand or pelt stones at it every time it comes chasing after your dog.

OR

You can talk to your neighbor about getting the dog trained.

The decision you take is a reflection of who you are — a dog lover or a simply someone in love with a dog. And herein lies that key to how much you can help or not, the dog kind. :)

Think about it…

And remember, a dog lover can also be someone who is in love with a dog. But you can’t usually make it go the other way round.

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